Department of Continuing Professional Development and Outcomes
Dignity Health’s Office of Continuing Professional Development and Outcomes (part of CommonSpirit Health) is pleased to announce that it has been granted Joint Accreditation™ with a commendation for Interprofessional Continuing Education (Joint Accreditation), for a period of six years. This follows a rigorous 15-month application process that included a comprehensive self-study report of Dignity Health’s continuing education program.
Joint Accreditation establishes the standards for education providers to deliver continuing education planned “by the healthcare team for the healthcare team.” This distinction is granted by three global leaders in the field of accreditation, including the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).
As a jointly accredited provider, Dignity Health can now offer continuing education credit to Physicians, Physician Assistants, Nurses, Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians, Social Workers Dieticians, and Dentists. The maximum six-year accreditation signifies that Dignity Health has achieved 100% compliance for Joint Accreditation plus demonstrated compliance in seven additional categories of excellence, placing Dignity Health in the top tier of continuing education providers in the United States. Also, there are only 135 organizations worldwide that have achieved Joint Accreditation, and only seven have been awarded commendation.
Dignity Health demonstrated its ability to plan, develop and deliver educational activities, as well as assess and evaluate clinical gaps of interprofessional teams to meet the rigorous criteria to achieve accreditation. “This designation reinforces Dignity Health’s commitment to leveraging continuing education as a strategic enabler to improve interprofessional collaborative practice in today’s complex healthcare environment, ” said Anita Chandrasena, MD, Chief Physician Executive, Northern California Division.
“Team-Based collaboration is the premise for coordinated, person-centered care. Dignity Health’s Office of Continuing Education and Outcomes is excited to support the improvement in the skills, strategies, performance, and patient outcomes through interprofessional education. Monica Bourke, MSN, RN, said, “We are honored to be recognized by the Joint Accreditation as a jointly accredited provider with commendation and proud to be joining this distinguished group of providers. We remain committed to offering the highest caliber of continuing education activities for the healthcare team.”
“Effective collaboration encourages patients, families, and healthcare providers to be active participants in the treatment process which in turn promotes improved quality outcomes, improvements in patient experience, patient safety, and effective use of resources. “We are excited to leverage our Joint Accreditation status to strategically enable quality and performance improvement across our healthcare teams,” said Karen Buckley, MHA, BSN, RN, CENP, Chief Nursing Executive Officer, Northern California Division.
“Our team consistently demonstrates the ability to implement an integrated planning process intended to achieve improvement in interprofessional team knowledge, skills, strategy, or performance and/or patient outcomes. We look forward to continuing to develop team-based educational activities that have a meaningful impact on clinicians and their patients,” said Teresa Childers, VP Quality and Patient Safety.
